Thursday began like any other, but Lina felt like she was walking through a different world.
The faces of her classmates blurred, voices sounded muffled, too distant, too meaningless.
Only yesterday's images remained sharp: the stain, the scratch, the look.
Everything else was just noise.
The assembly hall was loud, voices tumbling over each other. Jonas was talking, gesturing with his water bottle as if it were a microphone.
"I'm telling you: the guy fights. For real. Not some gym show-off stuff."
"Boxing club?" asked Amir.
Jonas grinned. "Forget it. This was something different. The guy is trained. Maybe street fights."
Kevin grimaced. "All nonsense. The guy's just a showoff."
"A showoff who put you on the ground in two seconds," Jonas shot back.
A few girls giggled.
"If he really fights – wow."
"I'd love to watch sometime," one of them murmured.
Lina pulled her hood deeper over her face, tried to block out the voices.
But every word hit her.
